An extravagantly reckless trip that may blow up the engine of my vehicle. The Conference of Northern California Handweavers is having a do, down in San Luis Obispo, in early August, and during a manic phase a couple of months ago, I paid for it. But the vehicle does not like to spend more than an hour on the freeway. Decelerating off the freeway, it sometimes rumbles in the most dangerous manner, but, of course, it will not do this for the mechanic. The anxiety is making me crazy, so I have, in a truly deranged spirit, decided to force the issue. I may have to be towed back from San Luis Obispo. But then at least the vehicle will be well and truly broken, and the mystery resolved.

The retreat runs Thursday through Sunday on the Cal Poly campus: three nights in a dorm room, and days taking a Kumihimo (Japanese braiding) intensive. I don’t know what I was thinking. While I have a rigid heddle loom in storage, and am interested in all things fiber, I do not have the brain for your complex weaving and/or braiding patterns. You have to be able to remember what was the last thing you did … but I am easily distracted, and I forget.

I took a tablet weaving class a couple of years back. These cards turn in this direction, pass the shuttle, those cards turn in that direction … which cards? … which direction? It was a splendidly frustrating experience, but it seems I forgot that also.

Still, I will persevere with a positive attitude, and, as usual, the preparation is often just as much fun as the actual event. You get to purchase things! Alas, I waited too long to be able to purchase the Marudai. Isn’t that a pretty word? It is the very elegant Japanese wooden stand on which you do your properly meditative Kumihimo, a smooth round wooden disc about ten inches across, supported by four spindly legs, with a hole in the middle, down which your braided cord hangs. I will have to rent one from the teacher.

All the braiding I have have done thus far had been on the circular foam discs with the cuts all around the edge to anchor your cords. On the Marudai, the cords simply hang, wrapped around equally elegant, weighted wooden bobbins called Tama. The Tama I was able to purchase, but I think the ones I got are too heavy (it’s always something), and we shall see how it works out.

The braid you are working, hanging down the well in the Marudai, is weighted also, and that weight I get to make myself. A small bag containing coins or washers hangs from an “S” hook and counters the weight of the Tama while you work. I crocheted two bags: a smaller purple one and a larger brown one, from some of my cabled Italian cotton. Then, for the weights in the bag: it is mildly alarming that there have been new quarters in circulation for two years, and I only just took note.